Maybe it was the name. Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises. How else do you account for its Chicago founder, Rich Melman, being nominated six consecutive times for the James Beard Foundation's outstanding restaurateur of the year award and never winning? Puns and prestige don't mix. Not usually. Monday night, though, at the Beard Foundation's awards gala in New York City, Melman finally took outstanding restaurateur honors. And he wasn't there. Melman — who...

A five-bedroom, 6,129-square-foot modernist house in Old Town that was the setting for a murder scene in the 1993 film "The Fugitive" has returned to the market for $3.7 million. The house, designed by Ron Ysla and owned by fertility doctor Norbert Gleicher, was listed in 2011 for $3.95 million and reduced later in 2011 to its current price. It went off the market in December. Built in 1981, the three-story house has 4 1/2 baths, walls of windows, an indoor...

What has Rich Melman been up to lately? Not much, really, other than trying to revamp the sagging Playboy clubs and planning for two Chicago-area restaurants to open in the next few months. One of them, on Halsted Street at the site of the old Otto's Beer Garden, is the new project of Ambria chef Gabino Sotelino. The concept, which Melman minions say will be a trend, is "tapas," or Spanish snack food that is meant to hold well-fed Iberians over from the time of the midday meal until...

Bub City (435 N. Clark St., 312-610-4200), will begin serving lunch in about...10 minutes. The new River North barbecue spot, which opened Dec. 13, is the latest from Melman siblings RJ, Jerrod and Molly (named after a restaurant their dad, Rich Melman, opened in 1989). Lunch service begins at 11 a.m. Friday; thereafter, Bub City will serve lunch Monday-Sunday.

Meatloaf was the turning point. As Rich Melman remembers it, five months before he was to open Ed Debevic's Short Orders/Deluxe at Wells and Ontario, he was still searching for the core of the restaurant, the key, the essence that would crystalize in his mind all that was real, all that was right, all that was . . . well, Ed. Then in a tasting session last May Melman and associates were auditioning possible dishes for the restaurant, and a...

Rich Melman and his team at Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises had a fun take on the food-court experience when they opened "foodlife" almost 20 years ago. Now they've got another twist on the concept dubbed "foodease", reports Crain's Eddie Baeb. Get it? Foodies? It will have wine, sushi, an M Burger (maybe now we can get in) and lots of prepared food to go. It's coming to Water Tower Place this fall, with an entrance near foodlife.

Bub City (435 N. Clark St., 312-610-4200), will begin serving lunch in about...10 minutes. The new River North barbecue spot, which opened Dec. 13, is the latest from Melman siblings RJ, Jerrod and Molly (named after a restaurant their dad, Rich Melman, opened in 1989). Lunch service begins at 11 a.m. Friday; thereafter, Bub City will serve lunch Monday-Sunday.

What’s in a name? For recent James Beard Award-winning restaurateur Rich Melman, it began 40 years ago with an involuntary emission of sound, which led to his restaurant empire. Here's the story of how RJ Grunts and other notable restaurants around town got their names. RJ Grunts At this Lincoln Park restaurant that launched the Lettuce Entertain You enterprise, the R and J came from the initials of Melman and business partner Jerry Orzoff's first names....

Rich Melman and his team at Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises had a fun take on the food-court experience when they opened "foodlife" almost 20 years ago. Now they've got another twist on the concept dubbed "foodease", reports Crain's Eddie Baeb. Get it? Foodies? It will have wine, sushi, an M Burger (maybe now we can get in) and lots of prepared food to go. It's coming to Water Tower Place this fall, with an entrance near foodlife.

Maybe it was the name. Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises. How else do you account for its Chicago founder, Rich Melman, being nominated six consecutive times for the James Beard Foundation's outstanding restaurateur of the year award and never winning? Puns and prestige don't mix. Not usually. Monday night, though, at the Beard Foundation's awards gala in New York City, Melman finally took outstanding restaurateur honors. And he wasn't there. Melman — who...

Rich Melman has brought Chicago a wonderful selection of restaurants. He should be commended for this. However, he should be flogged with a wet linguine for setting a precedent of "no reservations"! How can the people of Chicago halt this practice? Solution: Next time you have to wait one to three hours to be seated, take a table in the bar and order water (tip your waitress as if you were being served $3 drinks; after all, it's not her policy). By following these simple instructions, you will still enjoy the...

Were it not for the nation's financial meltdown, which has put dozens of Chicago restaurants at risk (I hope I'm wrong, but the first quarter of 2009 could be very painful), 2008 would be remembered as a remarkably good dining year. Here are some of the "ests" -- the best, the newest, the happiest and saddest -- that defined Chicago dining in 2008: Highest highs: The year started out as a confident affirmation of fine dining. In the first quarter alone the city saw the debuts of Takashi, Takashi...

Graveside services for Maurice "Morrie" Melman, 72, a former Chicago restaurant operator and father of restaurateur Rich Melman, were held Tuesday at Mt. Nebo Cemetery, Miami. Mr. Melman, who had retired to Florida, died Monday in Miami Heart Institute. An owner of several restaurants and drugstores, Mr. Melman was best known as the founder and operator of Ricky's and Mr. Ricky's, a popular delicatessen and restaurant in Skokie. His son, Richard, who is connected with 20 restaurants,...

Perhaps the only person outrageous enough to suggest that former WSCR-AM 670 mainstay Mike North has anything in common with Barry Manilow would be North himself, and guess who's tryin' to get the feeling again. "What Rich Melman is paying me to do is what the Las Vegas Hilton pays Barry Manilow to do," the hot-dog-man-turned-sports-talker explained Tuesday, in announcing his latest venture, a two-hour, five-day-a-week Internet program that will stream on the Lettuce Entertain You Web...

Debevic's mum on Chapter 11: Gerard Centioli, president and chief executive of New York-based Ed Debevic's Inc., doesn`t have much to say about the group's April 12 filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. He did say that no changes in management have occurred, but, when asked whether suppliers were being paid, said: "Again, we don`t have any comment on that. It`ll be handled through the normal process in Chapter 11 proceedings." Debevic's, which has six restaurants in...

When the dining public heard Hub 51 was coming to River North, they could have been forgiven had they reacted with a collective shrug. Another Melman restaurant, ho hum. Aren't there about 70 of those around the country? But Hub 51 wasn't created by Rich Melman, CEO of Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises. It was conceived by his twentysomething sons, R.J. and Jerrod. Welcome to Melman-the Next Generation. A decade ago, neither R.J., 28, nor Jerrod, 25, pictured himself in the restaurant business.

Bertha Melman, 85, wife of one Chicago restaurateur and mother of another, died Tuesday in her Miami Beach home from an illness related to arthritis. She met Maurice Melman on Oak Street Beach, and they got married in 1937. Maurice Melman opened a cafeteria near the Civic Opera House and a number of restaurants called Ricky's that inspired one of their sons, Rich, to found the Lettuce Entertain You chain that would become a driving force in Chicago dining. Called Bea by her family, Ms. Melman is remembered as a hard...

By Interview by Ann Therese Palmer, special to the Tribune | February 14, 2005

When Kevin Brown was growing up in Pittsburgh, one favorite summer weekend pastime was helping his dad and brother run a boat dock the family owned on the Ohio River. "My dad and brother would work on the boats, but I only wanted to work at the snack bar," Brown reminisces. "I'd work there all day. I can shut my eyes and vividly see the orange glow of the infrared toasting machine." Brown has never lost this enthusiasm for selling food near the water. After...

By Interview by Ann Therese Palmer, special to the Tribune | February 14, 2005

When Kevin Brown was growing up in Pittsburgh, one favorite summer weekend pastime was helping his dad and brother run a boat dock the family owned on the Ohio River. "My dad and brother would work on the boats, but I only wanted to work at the snack bar," Brown reminisces. "I'd work there all day. I can shut my eyes and vividly see the orange glow of the infrared toasting machine." Brown has never lost this enthusiasm for selling food near the water. After...

Lettuce Entertain You founder Rich Melman was at a Cubs spring training game in Arizona last winter when a conversation with a friend, ex-NBA star Rick Barry, turned, naturally, to food. The topic? A new chain that one of Melman's kids had discovered called Baja Fresh Mexican Grill. Melman had fallen in love with its chicken tacos and was eager to spread the word. Barry, it turns out, was an investor, and, right there, the conversation turned to Melman getting involved. ...